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TAMPA - For nearly four decades, Malcolm Miller's family wondered if they would ever get a chance to say goodbye to the red-headed young man with a charmingly goofy grin.

Miller grew up in South Tampa, just miles from MacDill Air Force Base, and he believed in serving God and country. So, on his second tour of duty in Vietnam, he agreed to go to a combat zone when he could have avoided it.

He was a 20-year-old Navy corpsman assigned to a Marine platoon when, on May 10, 1967, he and three others on patrol near Khe Sanh went missing after a firefight with dozens of Viet Cong. Their families were told they were dead, but the bodies weren't recovered.

For some 38 years, Miller's family waited for word.

"Without having his remains actually here, there's always been that mystery of is he still alive," said his niece, Dana Fisher, 32, of Madison, Ga.

On Monday, the public announcement finally came: His remains had been identified.

Next month, on the 38th anniversary of when he went MIA, Navy Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Malcolm Thomas Miller will receive a burial at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.

"We have decided we are not calling this closure," Fisher said. "This is a new beginning, because we know we can kind of go on with our lives and know that he's here and he has a home. We have a place that we can go and visit and know that his remains are there."

The U.S. Department of Defense's POW/Missing Personnel Office announced Monday that the remains of Miller and three others who were on his recon team had been found and will be returned to their families. The other men are Marine 2nd Lt. Heinz Ahlmeyer Jr. of Pearl River, N.Y.; Marine Sgt. James N. Tycz of Milwaukee; and Marine Lance Cpl. Samuel A. Sharp Jr. of San Jose, Calif.

Sharp was buried Saturday in San Jose but will be honored at Arlington. Ahlmeyer, Tycz and Miller will all be buried in Arlington on May 10.

They were part of a long-distance reconnaissance patrol operating northwest of the U.S. Marine base in Khe Sanh, Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, when they came under enemy attack shortly after midnight.

Miller and the other three were killed. Three more Marines survived the attack and were rescued by helicopter. But they were unable to recover the bodies because they were under heavy fire.

One helicopter pilot, Capt. Paul T. Looney, was shot to death while hovering 20 feet above the site, and was posthumously awarded the Silver Star.

The survivors reported that Miller had been firing his weapon at the enemy when he was killed by a Viet Cong grenade.

Over the last 12 years, eight joint U.S.-Vietnamese teams interviewed witnesses and surveyed the battleground, according to the Department of Defense. Two other joint teams excavated the site and found the remains. After extensive analysis, scientists identified them as Ahlmeyer, Tycz, Sharp and Miller.

Miller's family remembers him as having an easy way with people.

"He was a part of me," said Sandy Keheley, 60, of Madison, Ga., Miller's older sister and Fisher's mother.

"There's not a single day that I don't remember and think of him," she said. "And it hurt worse than losing my parents, I guess dying so young and not having the opportunity to do the things he wanted to do."

Miller wanted to become a doctor, his sister said. But he ended up in corpsman training in Jacksonville after getting into trouble with the law at 16.

Miller and a group of friends went joyriding in a car that Keheley said Miller didn't know was stolen. Since he was the oldest in the group, a judge held Miller responsible and gave him a choice: Go to jail or serve your country. He decided to enlist.

"It was like he fell in love," Keheley said. "He found his niche in life."

Miller had dropped out of Plant High School but got his GED at 16, Keheley said. She recalls him being very smart, although he let few people know it.

"I was considered the ugly duckling in the family," said Keheley, "and my brother thought I was special and he made me feel special and that meant a lot."

Keheley remains haunted by the thought that her brother died not knowing his family loved him. About a week after his death, a postal worker delivered a stack of letters that never reached Miller, and one that he had sent to his sister.

"I received one more letter," Keheley said, "and it was saying, "Why don't y'all write? No one has written me. Don't y'all love me anymore?' That was just another blow."

Miller's older brother, Albert Miller III, also known as Wes, served in the Air Force and was stationed at the Tan Son Nhute air base near what is now Ho Chi Minh City.

Keheley said Miller refused to sign papers that would have kept him from going back into combat, since his brother was already in a war zone.

"My father was all about God and country and he believed in serving the country," Keheley said. "He was afraid my dad wouldn't approve."

Miller pressed forward. He had six months left in the Navy when he was killed.

"He had three years of Navy behind him that didn't make him seem like a 20-year-old kid at all," said Frank Morelli, 62, of New Port Richey.

At 23, he met Miller during Navy corpsman training in California. Since Morelli was from Largo, the two Florida boys decided to stick together. Miller, he said, liked flag football and the song My Girl by the Temptations.

"It was his favorite song," Morelli said. "Every time I hear that all these years later, I think of him."

Fisher, Miller's niece, relished in stories like the one about her uncle hanging from a tree and reaching down to shake President John F. Kennedy's hand as he passed through Tampa in a motorcade on Nov. 18, 1963.

Miller's name is engraved on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, but his family never had a final resting place for him.

After 38 years, his sister said, it's finally time for him to come home.

--Times researchers Cathy Wos, Kitty Bennett, John Martin and Mary Mellstrom contributed to this report. Kevin Graham can be reached at 813 226-3433 or kgraham@sptimes.com

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